Zap Zip?

[David E. Wheeler]

Hi PGXNers,

Daniele Varrazzo has suggested via the blog that having distribution zip files named .pgz is a mistake. He suggests it just be .zip, so that it's more likely that people can double-click it. I don't have a strong opinion one or another, except that I'd have to tweak a bunch of stuff to change it.

So, does anyone have a compelling argument to change it?

Thanks,

David

[Jonathan "Duke" Leto]

Howdy,

The principle of least surprise suggests using an extension people and
tools are already familiar with.

Duke

--
Jonathan "Duke" Leto
jona...@leto.net
http://leto.net

[Hitoshi Harada]

+1 for .zip.

2011/4/26 David E. Wheeler <da...@kineticode.com>:

--
Hitoshi Harada

[renzo]

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:21:03 -0700, David E. Wheeler <da...@kineticode.com>
wrote:

> Hi PGXNers,
>
> Daniele Varrazzo has suggested via the blog that having distribution zip
> files named .pgz is a mistake. He suggests it just be .zip, so that it's
> more likely that people can double-click it. I don't have a strong
opinion
> one or another, except that I'd have to tweak a bunch of stuff to change
> it.
>
> So, does anyone have a compelling argument to change it?

According to wiki a "Filename extensions can be considered a type of
metadata. They are commonly used to infer information about the way data
might be stored in the file". According to this definition it is indeed
more helpful to use the .zip extension. Then nobody has to configure his OS
to open .pgz with a zip program 'automagically' (including
bash-completion). And not have to do something is indeed easier.

my 2 cents,

renzo

[David E. Wheeler]

On Apr 25, 2011, at 4:14 PM, renzo wrote:

> According to wiki a "Filename extensions can be considered a type of
> metadata. They are commonly used to infer information about the way data
> might be stored in the file". According to this definition it is indeed
> more helpful to use the .zip extension. Then nobody has to configure his OS
> to open .pgz with a zip program 'automagically' (including
> bash-completion). And not have to do something is indeed easier.

Okay, everyone who replied to this email, and everyone I asked, said .zip was better. So I've made that change and deployed it.

Thanks to the URI templates used in the root index.json, all tools should still work. I just tested Daniele's client, and it correctly downloaded the .zip instead of failing to get a .pgz. Yay!

Best,

David

[Daniele Varrazzo]

Yeah, I think the index.json is a really nice idea: it's very easy to work with and gives a lot of flexibility to tweak on server side: I'd noticed that the client wouldn't have broken after the rename.

Thank you for your decision! I know it's not pleasant to go back on your step but I think it's been the right choice.

-- Daniele

[David E. Wheeler]

On Apr 27, 2011, at 1:40 PM, Daniele Varrazzo wrote:

> Yeah, I think the index.json is a really nice idea: it's very easy to work
> with and gives a lot of flexibility to tweak on server side: I'd noticed
> that the client wouldn't have broken after the rename.
>
> Thank you for your decision! I know it's not pleasant to go back on your
> step but I think it's been the right choice.

I've changed a *lot* of things since I started out. I knew it would happen, though, and I'm okay with it making things better.

Best,

David